A photoacoustic tomography (hereinafter, sometimes abbreviated as “PAT”) apparatus is known as one apparatus for visualizing information in a living body. In measurement using the PAT apparatus, an image in which the substance distribution in an object to be measured is computed can be obtained by measuring the intensity and the time of generation of a photoacoustic signal emitted from a substance (optical absorber) that absorbs light in the object to be measured, in irradiation of the object to be measured with light.
For the optical absorber, any substance can be here used as long as the substance absorbs light and emits an acoustic wave in a living body. For example, a blood vessel or a malignant tumor in a human body can be adopted for the optical absorber. Besides, molecules of indocyanine green (hereinafter, sometimes abbreviated as “ICG”) and the like can also be administered into a body and utilized as a contrast agent. ICG well absorbs light in the near-infrared wavelength region, the light having a small influence in irradiation of a human body therewith and having a high permeability to a living body, and therefore can be suitably used as a contrast agent (sometimes abbreviated as a “photoacoustic contrast agent”) in the PAT apparatus. In the present description, ICG refers to a compound represented by a structure of the following formula.
Herein, the counter ion may not be Na+, and any counter ion such as H+ or K+ can be used.
It is known that, however, ICG has a very short half-life of about several minutes in blood.
PTL 1 reports an example in which a tumor accumulation is confirmed using a contrast agent in which polyethylene glycol (hereinafter, sometimes abbreviated as “PEG”) is covalently bound to a near-infrared fluorescent dye. The near-infrared fluorescent dye can be bound to PEG to thereby allow the half-life in blood to be prolonged as compared with a single near-infrared fluorescent dye.
NPL 1 discloses a compound in which a rhodamine dye (maximum absorption wavelength: 530 nm) is bound to the terminal of a 2-methacryloyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine (sometimes abbreviated as “MPC”) polymer.